Nice
by welcometonerdworld
Summary: In which Lily is hung over and has a nice conversation with James, about a certain part of his anatomy. Cover art by viria.


It is the 28th of March, and there is an incessant pounding, a thudding drum beating in her head, a pulsing pain in her temples. This is the most hung over Lily Evans has ever been, and she doesn't like it one bit.

She knows that she won't throw up – she doesn't feel nauseous – but she also knows that there's no way in hell that this headache is going to leave without the help of a remedy. And the only people with that solution would be her fellow seventh years.

With that in mind, Lily drags her body out of bed and thumps down the steps of Gryffindor Tower, without checking her appearance. It doesn't even really occur to her that she might just look horrific before she's already reached the top of the stairs to the boys' dormitory, and by that point it's too late. She's already hammering on the door.

"Prongs,'s your turn." Comes a sleepy utterance from inside the room.

"Fuck you."

There are a few heavy footsteps and then the door is wrenched open by a shirtless James Potter. Lily notes that he has a very nice chest, that James Potter.

She's expecting a "Like what you see, Evans?" from him – she is staring at his torso – but instead she receives a thoughtful, "Hello? Is anybody in there?" accompanied by a wave in her face.

"Sorry, James." Lily snaps out of her thoughts and rubs at her eyes, "I was looking for a Hangover Potion."

"Ah." James turns and walks over to Sirius' bed, ducking his head under it and pulling out a box. Grabbing his wand and muttering a few spells, the box opens and James rifles through it until he retrieves a phial containing a slightly dodgy looking blue liquid. Nevertheless, he hands it over to Lily, who downs it in one go, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

"Thanks," she mutters, shutting her eyes briefly as the potion makes its way into her body. Already she can feel the pain in her head ebbing away and she sighs in relief, opening her eyes.

"Don't you get hung over?" She asks, curious.

"Took a potion before I slept," James says, kicking the box back under Sirius' bed, "Prevention and precaution and all that."

"Oh." Lily feels a little bit silly – but she's hardly one to think logically when she's drunk.

"James?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't remember if I wished you yesterday, so Happy Birthday."

"Thanks, Lily," he grins sleepily and sits down on his bed, patting the space beside him. She takes it, ignoring the fact that there are three other snoring boys in the room.

"You did actually wish me, though," He goes on, "Twice, in fact."

Lily frowns, "Really?"

"Yeah. Once in the morning, before Charms, and once when you were drunk, at the party."

"Oh. Well, three Happy Birthdays for you, then."

They sit in a sort of awkward, but not uncomfortable silence, until, "James?"

"Huh?" He looks at her.

Lily's never looked at James Potter's eyes before. They've always been hidden behind his glasses, but now that she can see them in front of her face, she can't help but think that James has extraordinarily nice eyes. They're brown, but not dull. They have a light to them, a sort of reflective gold quality that makes them look, to an exhausted Lily at least, almost shiny...

"Lily? Are you okay?" James' hand is hot on her shoulder, and Lily starts.

"What? Oh, sorry, James. I'm just really tired."

"I can see that." He lets out a small laugh and she smiles.

Then she frowns, thinking. After a moment, she asks tentatively, "James, did I do anything stupid yesterday?"

She doesn't know why she asks that. Maybe it's the fact that she's never been _that drunk_, or the fact that face it, she fancies James massively and woke up this morning with a feeling that she'd forgotten something.

James' expression changes. There is a small smirk on his mouth but he has a thoughtful look about him – it's as if he's working out what to tell her.

Lily dreads what's about to come, even though she doesn't know what it is.

"Well," he says finally, "How do I put this?"

Lily groans. "How bad was it?"

"You just...said some rather..."

"What?"

"Comical things."

There's a pause – then Lily braves it. "Such as?"

"You," James looks as if he's trying not to laugh, "You said some stuff about my bum."

Lily's eyes enlarge and it is as if all the blood in her body has run straight to her face. Attempting to keep her voice calm, she asks casually, "Your bum, did you say?"

"Uh, yeah. You called it...nice?"

It's this word that sends Lily all the way down memory lane.

"_What d'you mean, I fancy him?" She demanded._

_Remus held his hands up, in a 'don't kill me' gesture, "I'm just saying, Lily. You've been staring at him an awful lot, and –"_

"_Well," she hiccoughed slightly, "That doesn't mean that I—"_

"_Okay, maybe you don't," he complied, "But you've been looking at him for the entirety for this party, and—"_

"_I'm drunk, Remus. Blame Black, he's the one who gave me this bloody drink." She groaned and set her cup down on the table in front of the sofa._

"_Drinks in the plural, you mean."_

"_Eh, details. Besides, I've only been staring at James because he looks nice." _

"Ah," Lily says, coming back to the present, "Now I remember."

James grins, "Thought you would. You weren't all that drunk, anyway. The boys had some, err, trouble agreeing with you."

Lily fights the urge to smack the smirk off his face, as attractive as it may be.

"_See, Remus?" Lily recalled saying._

"_What am I meant to be seeing, exactly?" He wondered aloud._

"_Oh," she hit him on the shoulder harder than she'd intended, "He looks nice! Especially his bum."_

_Had Lily not been looking at James Potter's arse at this point, she would have seen an almost bursting-with-laughter Remus Lupin, whose face was steadily turning crimson as he tried not to laugh._

_Shoulders shaking, Remus said, "Care to elaborate on that, Lily?"_

_Lily shrugged, lying back on the sofa and staring dreamily over at James. "I dunno, Remus. His bum's just really...fit. And it looks even better in those trousers..." She hummed happily and Remus wondered just how much exactly Lily has had to drink._

"_Don't you agree?" _

"_What?" said Remus incredulously, "Erm, I dunno, Lily..."_

"_What are we agreeing on?" Sirius has appeared, downing half a phial of Sobering Potion as he came over and sat himself next to Lily._

"_James." Lily stated obviously._

"_James what?"_

"_His bum." Interjected Remus, smirking._

_Sirius' eyebrows were halfway up his forehead. He imitated Remus' expression. "Really, Evans?" He drawled, "What about James' bum?"_

_Lily blinked. "It's nice."_

Lily makes a face as she remembers her drunken state – why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut?

"Don't worry," says James, still smiling, "I didn't hear all that much. Most of it was relayed to me afterwards."

"Doesn't make it any better," mutters Lily, and then, "How much did you hear, then?"

She already knows the answer.

"_Nice." Sirius deadpanned._

"_Yes, nice! Is it so wrong that I think his bum's nice?"_

"_Nice is the worst adjective in the world, Lily." Remus put in oh-so-helpfully._

"_Okay," she groaned, "Fine. I think,"_

"_Yes?" Remus and Sirius said in unison._

"_James Potter's bum is..."_

_But Sirius and Remus never did find out what Lily was going to say, because said boy accompanied by aforementioned nice bum was suddenly standing over the three of them._

"_Hello there, Evans."_

_Lily gaped at James._

"_Mind finishing your sentence, Lily?" Sirius looked eagerly between James and Lily, back and forth, anticipating the next move._

"I don't remember anything else," Lily says, frowning, "What happened?"

James scratches his jaw – it's a very nice shape, Lily thinks – "Uh, I think you realised what you said, and you went to bed?"

"Right." Lily breathes out a breath she didn't even realise she was holding, "Could have been worse, I suppose."

"I reckon it could have been a lot better too." James looks at her and Lily bites her lip.

"You think so?"

"Yep," he says, and she notices that they are very, very close. When did that happen?

"Lily?"

"James."

"What do you really think of my bum?"

The question's so daft that Lily laughs loudly, and a "Shut it, Evans," comes from behind Sirius' curtains.

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

He looks nervous, and Lily doesn't get it – what does he have to be worried about? He wasn't the extraordinarily smashed one with the stupid comment. "I think your arse is aesthetically lovely."

He raises his eyebrows, "Which is a fancy-arse way of saying nice."

"I like to think of it as eloquent."

He snorts. "So, you like my arse?"

"I do."

"Is that the only thing?"

"Fishing for compliments, are we?" She laughs, "I like you, James. You're nice."

"For the record, Lily, you're nice too."

She doesn't have the time to comprehend what exactly this means before he's kissing her – his lips are soft and warm and move in just the right way against hers, and his smile is transferred to Lily. She giggles against his mouth.

"Oi! I've had enough!" A wild Sirius Black's head sticks out between his curtains and shouts, "Go snog downstairs!"

"Agreed," a sleepy word from Remus, whilst Peter still snores on in the background.

James shoots Sirius the finger, but he's already diving back into bed. James turns back to Lily and smiles. She beams back. "James?"

"Lily."

"Happy Birthday."

He laughs, "Thanks Lily."

"You're welcome. I hope you like your present."

"What's that, then?"

She kisses him once more, a small peck on his lips that leaves hers tingling. "There. Happy Birthday."

"And that makes five times total."

"I know."

She kisses him three times more. After all, Lily thinks equal numbers are nice, too.

Just not as nice as James Potter's bum.


End file.
